2 Days in the Valley (1996)

September 27, 1996

His Blood Is Colder Than Ice

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Published: September 27, 1996

If ''Two Days in the Valley'' attracts a large audience, it could finally rescue the San Fernando Valley from its popular image as an endless shopping center overrun with teen-age airheads shrieking, ''Gag me with a spoon!'' Instead of spoiled mall rats, this comic film noir written and directed by John Herzfeld populates the same territory with Robert Altman-like oddballs viewed through a Quentin Tarantino-ish lens.

''Two Days in the Valley'' lacks the humanity of ''Short Cuts'' or the edgy hipness of ''Pulp Fiction,'' but it is still a sleek, amusingly nasty screen debut by a film maker whose television credits include an Amy Fisher docudrama. James Spader, in the chilliest role of his career, plays Lee Woods, a fish-eyed killer and surveillance expert who takes grinning pleasure in holding a stopwatch to his victims' faces and conducting do-or-die 60-second interrogations.

As part of an elaborate murder-for-insurance scheme, Lee has engaged Dosmo Pizzo (Danny Aiello), a down-and-out contract killer, as his accomplice, intending to do away with him at the first opportunity. But Dosmo, who becomes the film's deus ex machina, proves unexpectedly resilient.

Lee is nearly matched in sang-froid by Becky Foxx (Teri Hatcher), an Olympic skiier, who wakes up one morning to find her ex-husband's blood-drenched corpse beside her in bed, and by Lee's sexpot girlfriend, Helga (Charlize Theron). Midway through the movie, Becky, who suggests Nancy Kerrigan as seen through a glass darkly by Raymond Chandler, and Helga, a rancid Scandinavian answer to Pamela Anderson Lee, clash in one of the most down-and-dirty fights between two women ever shown in a Hollywood film.

''Two Days in the Valley'' constantly shifts from one group of characters to another as it juggles four stories that eventually intersect. One involves Allan Hopper (Greg Cruttwell), a bilious English art dealer with kidney stones. This tantrum-throwing twit, played with apoplectic zeal by Mr. Cruttwell, is an Anglophobe's worst nightmare. His sneering advice to his long-suffering secretary, Susan (Glenne Headly) -- that without liposuction and plastic surgery she will never find a man -- is the movie's unsparing measure of his churlishness. Once Dosmo, dazed and panic-stricken, stumbles into Allan's glass-walled aerie waving a gun, the movie makes a huge point of showing that Dosmo is by far the more decent of the two.

Also roped into the movie's web are Alvin (Jeff Daniels) and Wes (Eric Stoltz), antagonistic vice detectives who blunder onto the crime scene. Scowling and rage-filled, Alvin is on a personal mission to keep massage parlors out of the San Fernando Valley, while Wes, who aspires to be a homicide detective, can't bring himself to bust the pretty Vietnamese girl he has been ordered to entrap.

Finally, there are Teddy Peppers (Paul Mazursky), a failed screenwriter and director, who meets his soul mate, Evelyn (Louise Fletcher), in a cemetery while contemplating suicide. Don't ask how, but the pair end up at Allan's home. Other well-known actors who pop up in the film include Keith Carradine, Marsha Mason and Austin Pendleton.

''Two Days in the Valley'' skillfully balances comedy and meanness, with Mr. Aiello's canine-fearing Dosmo providing much of the humor, which is dry and self-parodying. Such jokes as Mr. Aiello's reeling in terror at the sight of a dog sculpture effectively camouflage the icy heart of a film whose characters float around and bump into one another like random particles in a disordered universe.

''Two Days in the Valley'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has a lot of violence, some of it gory, along with nudity and profanity.

TWO DAYS IN THE VALLEY

Written and directed by John Herzfeld; director of photography, Oliver Wood; edited by Jim Miller and Wayne Wahrman; music by Anthony Marinelli; production designer, Catherine Hardwicke; produced by Jeff Wald and Herb Nanas; released by Rysher Entertainment/MGM Credit Lyonnais. Running time: 105 minutes. This film is rated R.